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Hi Prufrock.
Seem to remember you from the Betfair forum.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I’ve only just started checking the Timeform ratings, comparing them to the adjusted Racing Post Ratings which don’t seem to be a particularly good guide to a horse’s chances. It’ll be interesting to see if Timeform’s are any better.
Would it be fair to say that the most accurate ratings a horse picks up in its career are those from its wins, and possibly also from its placed efforts ? I ask since it isn’t that uncommon to see a horse receive an apparently inflated rating when running well above its class, say after having set a modest pace in a listed race and subsequenlty holding on for 3rd, and so on. However, when that same horse wins a race the race tends to be rated around those it beat and I’m assuming that, on the whole, that would lead to a figure that reflected much more closely the horse’s ability.
Thanks again,
blue
That sounds dubious to me when you consider that many horses are pounds better on sand than turf, and vice versa.
Seems like another good reason not to take much notice of adjusted Racing Post Ratings.
Ended up with the following stats for 6 furlongs at Kempton from a sample size of 82 races :
Stall 1 : 1.0
Stall 2 : 1.7
Stall 3 : 1.5
Stall 4 : 1.2
Stall 5 : 0.9
Stall 6 : 0.6
Stall 7 : 0.9
Stall 8 : 0.4
Stall 9 : 0.7
Stall 10 : 0.3
Stall 11 : 1.5
Stall 12 : 1.9
Stall 13 : 0.0The average for stalls 1-4 is 1.3, for stalls 5-8, 0.7 and for stalls 9-13, 0.9.
That’s the method Peter May recommends, but since I’m cranking these out by hand (…) I’ve settled on the Mordin/Gibby method.
Again, thanks for your input.
Thanks for all your help Prufrock. Very much appreciated.
Spent ages compiling the data for all distances up to and including a mile at Kempton and have just finished compiling the respective IVs for each stall over 5f. The sample size I have for this trip is no where near big enough, taking in just 26 races, but the results, if correct, are interesting. Bearing in mind the fact that stall 1 here will always be the closest to the inside running rail, i.e. stall 12 in a 12 runner race, stall 9 in a 9 runner, etc, you find the following :
Stall 1 : 1.5
Stall 2 : 0.4
Stall 3 : 1.1
Stall 4 : 1.8
Stall 5 : 0.0
Stall 6 : 0.4
Stall 7 : 1.1
Stall 8 : 1.1
Stall 9 : 1.7
Stall 10 : 1.2The average IV for stalls 1-5 is 0.8 and for 6-10 is 0.9, which in itself suggests there’s very little in the way of a bias, but it is interesting to note that the middlemost draws, 5 and 6, have such a lousy record.
Does this chime with your experience of Kempton at the 5 furlong trip ?
blue
Meaning, I suppose, that in a twelve runner race in which stalls 11 and 10 are non runners, 12 remains 1 but 9 becomes 2, 8 becomes 3, etc ?
The book is already available from High Stakes bookshop, who are also the publishers.
If you create your own tissue and consider that a horse should be 33/1 but is in fact going to post at 50/1, that isn’t value. By making the horse 33/1, you’re saying that it has a 2.9% chance of winning ; the bookies reckon 2%. Hardly any discrepancy really ; you’re pretty much agreed it’s going to lose. On the other hand, if you make a horse evens and it’s going off at 2/1, that is value. You consider its chances of winning to be as much as 50%, but the bookies reckon only 25%. That’s a huge margin in your favour if you’re right. So, it’s the difference in percentage terms which is crucial, not necessarily the price. Most people muddle things up, I think, because they equate the term “value” with finding 25/1 winners, and that isn’t what the term is supposed to mean ( unless you thought the 25/1 shot should be 4/1, of course ). Mark Cramer always said that any horse you price up in excess of 6/1 is a non-contender, unless the field is particularly contentious when you might stretch it to 8/1. So, if you make a horse 10/1 and it’s 14/1, no bet ; you’re edge in percentage terms is negligible to warrant the risk of backing a horse with only a 9.1% chance of winning.
blue
Hi David, and thanks again.
Pity I didn’t know earlier that he posted on here as I might have been able to pick his brains. I did write to him via his publisher but never received a reply. I thought his method good, but the standard times he gave in his book, though okay, really needed to be updated each year, and I found the method involved in establishing a correct going allowance easy to understand but difficult to implement. He could’ve done with giving more examples.
Anyway, perhaps someone else on here will be able to help.
blue
Incidentally, did anyone ever work out just how Mr Stavers managed to get his going allowances ? In the example races he gave it was difficult to discern any pattern to them.
